A miracle at a bookstore
2/1/2008 10:59:34 PM

By Phil Calvert, your IMB missionary to Ecuador

As typically happens on a mission projects, plans changed at the last minute. A local Ecuadorian pastor called to ask if the volunteer team and I could visit him the next day at 1 p.m. instead of at 9 a.m., which had been the plan. I called the guys to see what they would like to do in the morning.

"You’re the missionary, you tell us," they said. I agreed to pray about it and pick them up in the morning with a plan. The next morning I picked them up and told them that the Lord was leading us to the town of Cumbaya. While driving there we agreed that, while we would do street evangelism, the main focus was finding a person of peace that would open his/her home or business to a Bible Study.

After arriving in Cumbaya we started to walk around the town square and meet people. After about an hour one of the guys needed to use the rest room. As we walked to a nearby restaurant, one of the guys looked at a sign above a door and then reached down into his backpack. I asked him what was going on and he pointed up. Above him was a wooden sign with the Jesus Fish on it. Since we were on a mission to find a person of peace, we all walked into the store together to check it out. As we entered, the gentleman behind the counter stood up from a kneeling position. He told us that his name was Guillermo. He asked us what we were doing there. I said that I lived in Quito and the guys were on a mission trip. He then asked us if we were Christians and we said, 'Yes." He then asked, "What kind of Christians?" We said, "Evangelicals." He continued, "What kind of Evangelicals?" I said, "Baptists." "What kind of Baptists?" he asked. I said, "Southern Baptists." He said that he was a Southern Baptist as well. It is quite rare to find a Southern Baptist Ecuadorian and we were all surprised. He had been saved in 1978 through the work of IMB missionaries who are now retired.

I asked him if he would like to have a Bible Study in his store (which is a Christian bookstore). He said that when we walked into his shop he was kneeling and praying for three things. One prayer request was to do more for the Lord. He had lost his job in January and started to work for his wife, who is the owner of the bookstore. He gave himself until the end of July to figure out how to serve God more. The day we entered his shop was July 27th. He said that being able to study God's Word in his store was an answer to his first prayer (we started a Bible Study the following week). He then asked my name. I said, "Phil." He then asked, "Phil what?" I said, "Phil Calvert." He said, "You're not going to believe this, but the second thing I was praying for was how to find Phil Calvert." We were all very amazed to say the least. He continued by saying that the previous night he had been speaking with an Ecuadorian Baptist pastor about his desire to serve the Lord more. The pastor suggested that he contact a Baptist missionary named Phil Calvert. However, he did not have my contact information. So, as Guillermo was praying to find me we walked into his shop. After a time of rejoicing in the Lord, the guys on the team bought some Bibles, CD's and other books and I agreed to visit Guillermo the next week when the team had returned to the USA.

The next week I visited Guillermo and I asked him what the third prayer request was. He said that the guys from the team had purchased enough Bibles, CD's and books for him to pay July's rent. This was an answer to his third prayer!

As we talked I asked him if he knew of a sport's stadium that we could use the following July for an International World Changers (IWC) group. He said, "Hop in my car, I want to show you something." We drove to a very nice facility that included a wonderful soccer field, stadium seating and a community center. He said that he had signed a one-year agreement to manage the stadium. I said that it was the perfect spot but the IWC group would need it July 8th - 14th of 2006. He said he had just signed the agreement and it ran through July 15th of 2006!

The next July we did in fact use the stadium. We brought part of the IWC team there and the Lord moved mightily. The team was going to perform The Redeemer drama. I was outside of the stadium organizing events and when I returned, the team was standing in front of the crowd, ready to begin the drama. The Holy Spirit told me that the drama was not right for the audience. I approached the team and asked them to perform another drama. They said that The Redeemer was the only one they had practiced. They huddled for about 10 minutes and created an entirely new drama, which they called David and Goliath. My ten year old son played the part of David. After the drama between 20 and 30 people came forward to give their lives to Christ.

We praise the Lord because the work of the team in July 2005 led to the salvations in July 2006 by another volunteer team.

Serve God in Latin America!